


Purge: Gotham

by fearofElderly353



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Female Bruce Wayne, Female Jerome Valeska, Masochism, Murder, Purge AU, Self Burning, Self Loathing, Slow Burn, although i cannot attest to the reliability of such a bold declaration, basically ra's al ghul is dead and the court of owls has gone rogue, cursing, drastically altering the course of events, feel free to let me know if i missed something, might as well take that bullet, obligatory genderswap au, plot heavy, references to the candle scene early on, sexual scenarios and implications, tags to be added with relevence, the goal is to update every wednesday, there was always gonna be one, they don't even meet until chapter four, whoops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-01 18:27:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16770511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearofElderly353/pseuds/fearofElderly353
Summary: “So,” Jersey says, tongue flicking over cracked flesh. She tilts her head forwards, chin perched in gloved fingers, a dastardly display of pensiveness. “Bet you’re pretty, huh,” a piggish snort here, a vague gesture to Brooke’s shredded jumper, “torn up about all this.”





	1. Chapter 1

_Ra’s Al Ghul_ yearns for death’s forgiveness so desperately she’s forgotten what it’s like to feel anything else. She resides in shadows, pulling fraying strings and ordering genocide not because she desires riches or power or pleasure but because she is endowed with inevitability, the knowledge that at least with every wretched passing second she lurches closer to the _end_.

She bides, eons, lives through every conceivable outcome, catches glimpses now and then of her illicit, primordial longings, configures, machinates, puppeteers humanity with a finesse inseparable from what all-powerful entity the pit has cursed her to become. In one route, she abducts the girl, brainwashes her, molds her to her whims, has her doom the city which mirrors her existence, has her plunge a sword in the gut of her most treasured confidant; her sole bastion of parental guidance. She taunts and mocks until rage has become the child, consumed by hatred, vile and screaming and she kills her, and it is oh, ever so _riveting_ to create a murderer.

But when it is said and done with she is not at all patient enough for such frivolous games, nor idiotic enough to deprive Gotham of its dark, problematically _pacifistic_ pillar of hope. When it is said and done with indeed, even a meager sixteen years seems tantamount eternity. 

The night her heir -- her _savior_ \-- is birthed, an indescribably gargantuan weight is lifted off her shoulders; the near immortal practically dancing in preemptive ecstasy, for the first moment in an abyss of warped time and so, so many roads, so many fragments of the universe, so much _noise_ , she feels calm, she feels quiet, she feels _something_.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispers, thumb drifting dotingly across the resting infant’s forehead. “You will do many a great things, Brooke Wayne. And this,” she coos, wrapping fingers so small they almost don’t quite fit round the handle of the one weapon which can truly set her free, “Is your first.”

With that—no postponing, no monologue, no hesitation-- she snags the knife across her throat and cries, tears of jubilation, as it drains her life, drains the agony, the wisdom, what she’s seen, what she’s _done_ , drains it all away, until there is nothing left but a corpse and the wailing of a newborn knight, shining light across a plane of peace, dust motes swirling in a tranquil maelstrom around her withered remains.

_HEADLINE: In a rare and infortuitous(unforeseeable, really) turn of events, an eldritch bird survives a rather gruesome beheading—blinded, it seeks feathery havoc on anything and everything that so much as twitches in the breeze, talons poised to tear the world apart, if they must._

****

****

* * *

**_Year 1_ **

As faultless a pawn as many consider her, Brooke shoulders the blame of an indefinite multitude of atrocities felled upon the city at the avaricious claws of Wayne Enterprises, the corrupt guardian-angel of Gotham which dons the hollow promise of her family name. _It doesn’t hurt at first._ The untimely and likely orchestrated death of her parents has served as a catalyst for manipulative campaigns promoting policies purporting to protect the poor but benefiting primarily those already firmly secured in positions of power; at the forefront of these gluttonous proselytizations, the newspapers, the advertisements, the commercials-- her own face is plastered, a pleading sort of innocence and betrayal in the dark circles highlighting the gauntness, the somberness, the _utter loss_ she emulates in undulating waves. _Then it consumes; uncontrollably, teeth grinding, back trembling, sweat pooling._ It was her weakness, her lack of evidence and the gumption to collect it, her hesitation and ignorance, which ultimately, in her mind, thrust the population into this derelict frenzy of malcontent chaos.

_A test of endurance; a game of chicken with pain; a comeuppance; a required flagellation._

But she would not let this stand. _Stop, stop, stop--_ She would grow stronger, she would recover the missing pieces, she would do something, _anything_ more than sit comfortably in this empty mansion and grieve; this was her diligence, her parent’s legacy; she had to fight for justice, for what she knew was right, for--

_You deserve it you deserve it you deserve it--_

“Miss Brooke, best try and eat some supper now, will you?”

No longer alone, she wrenches her hand from the flame and hides it behind her, standing up and backing as far away as she can in a harried attempt to dissuade any associations with the offending object. “Winifred,” she struggles to keep her mouth in a firm line, voice quiet, body screaming, “have you reconsidered my request?”

The housekeeper takes one disbelieving, somewhat bewildered glance of her before rushing forwards, a looming, somehow furious concern swimming in her typically hardset countenance. “And what have you gone and done now, Miss B?” As she moves one stride Brooke moves another in the opposite direction. “Come on, show me what you’re hiding, there.”

Brooke shakes her head in dismissal, prideful at what she has accomplished, but more ashamed with each passing second for having been caught. Although her palm aches from its surreptitious alcove she musters what she can in assurance. “I’m fine, Winifred.”

Faster and more forcefully than she is able to counter her arm is tugged out and she’s wincing and Winifred is yelling-- “You idiotic child.”-- and then they are hugging-- “Stupid _, stupid_ girl.” -- and someone is shaking and -- “What were you thinking?” -- and her hand is being dressed, something hurting, barely registered--

“Winifred,” she says, sometime later, uninjured fist clenching melodramatically, denial burning in her blood, plush of the sofa grating into her bones, “you have to understand, I’m,” she forces herself to hold eye contact, “I need to be stronger, faster, wiser, I...” Determination pumps through her veins, most recent wound resonating with veritable courage. “So I can change things, Winifred, so I can right the wrongs of my company. So I can _help_ people.”

Experienced scrutiny paints the tone and poise of her stuffy custodian. “And tell me, Miss Brooke, how will you help people when you’ve gone and burnt your bloody hand off?” In the warm glow of the evening light, against the unwavering confidence of this old friend she doesn’t know nearly enough about, Brooke can’t find a worthy rebuttal. The housekeeper sighs, roughly scratching the back of her neck. “And furthermore, this Purge madness,” she says, “Is set for unmitigated bedlam. Once it passes, I can guarantee it won’t be happening again."

Unremitting, angsty silence percolates at the pit of her stomach. “Listen, Miss B, we’re far better off away.” Exasperation laces the lecture like gunpowder; flames crackle, curtains rustle, and resignation rings. “For God’s sake, you’re barely a teen and you’ve already got a price on your head.”

“Poverty and crime don’t discriminate based on age, Winifred,” Brooke snaps, enraged by the perceived lack of empathy. “I’m not the only ‘ _teen’_ who’s going to be in danger.”

A firm grasp on her shoulder, meant to placate. "With all due respect, the best you'll do some good by those kids, by this _place_ , is alive, Miss B."

Brooke looks up. She knows, subconsciously, that Winifred is right. But at the same time, she couldn’t be more wrong.

“I,”

Weary eyes meet wise, searching desperately for a glimpse of comprehension.

_Crystal_ , tortured and pleading, diminishing daily.

_Obsidian_ , loyal and trying, determined in the face of an impossible task.

It’s Winifred who wins the race of internal conclusions.

“ _You_ ,” an indisputable command, “are not powerless.”

She squeezes once, then again, before straightening out, almost physically hardening in appearance. "Now, I do hope, when the cab arrives next morning, to see your bags nice and packed. We'd hate to have a repeat of, ah, our last venture, now would we?"

A moment of stillness, deliberation and rumination flashing in the too intense glare of the convicted fourteen-year-old. "May we at least say our farewells to Detective Gordon,” _a hero,_ “before we go?"

"Why, that no-good, lousy--" Winifred starts, features twisting sourly, before visibly composing herself in an act of generous, unfamiliar restraint. "I do suppose we'll make the time for it, if we go about our breakfast faster than a stuffed snail's pace, now will we?"

Brooke feels a reluctant smile stretching across her face, as if broken from some spiraling thrall.

"Alright, Winifred."

* * *

That year, while Brooke is thousands of miles away, asleep in a contorted position on a desk sprawled with clippings and conspiracy, snow drifting gently onto the silent, sparkling rooftop, Jersey Valeska, seventeen, unhindered by the law, free of the restrictions of the so-called- _normal,_ hacks her father into thirty three rancid, rotten pieces, relishing in the tears that punctuate his screams, cacophonous laughter echoing into the rise of the morning sun.


	2. Chapter 2

**Year 2**

"You're crazy, you know that?"

Selim toys with his trademark locket despondently, round, feline face and curls smooshed on a leather-bound shoulder, oozing a sense of boredom and superiority. "Old Mrs. Hudson's gonna blow a gasket if you're still out here on Purge night, kid. Go home."

Brooke shrugs, confident in her decision but eager for approval. A lingering concern for Winifred, the closest she has left to a family, is suppressed by an unyielding, festering desire for knowledge, for experience. The housekeeper is tough as nails; she can take care of herself. "I'm serious about this, Selim. I want to understand."

Her friend shoots her an incredulous, amused smirk. "Okay,” conceding, “but you gotta do," he shifts, " _everything_ I say. Got it?"

She nods, grateful, awed. "I will. Thank you."

"First thing's first," he remarks, springing suddenly into the air, "You’re gonna need some new clothes."

* * *

  
  
So, Magic Mushrooms grown in basements by plant-predilection-possessing orphans were going to be a thing of the norm now, Brooke supposes. Along with larceny, albeit that of criminals, which, by her standards, is an informal justice, and the drugging of said criminals in order to accomplish said larceny; all in all, the courses of action presented to her by the circumstance she has willingly submitted herself to are as thrilling and risky as she had initially assumed. Of course, a small, idealistic segment of her had hoped the ostensible decreased crime rate, in accordance with reports and broadcasts, was a concept of reality. It was not.

How she feels about this; she cannot place, beyond a blistering, effervescent rage. Vaguely, somewhere in her peripheral mindscape, she notices her breath heightening, hackles rising and jaw clenching. Her fault, _her_ pollution, and people like Selim, people like Iverson, must suffer, must live it every day, peons in the hands of the Gods who swat their happiness away like summer gnats. And she… what is she doing to stop it? Playing pretend pauper? Romanticizing the life of a homeless street thug? _No_ , she was… she was here to see what kind of person she would exist as without the extraneous wealth, without the privilege, without her birthright. Without Brooke Wayne. And then… _Then_ , she would...

“Brooke, snap out of it.” Selim bites, slouched, eyebrow quirked. Iverson, looking worse for wear than perhaps even Brooke herself at her lowest, bright red hair tangled and unctuous, dilapidated sweater reeking of mold, sweat, and smoke, stands beside him, glaring indifferently in her general direction.

“Yeah, gazillionaire girl,” he adds. “You’re wasting precious time. You guys need to go, now.”

Brooke relaxes her fist, collecting calm, and nods. “Alright. Let’s do it.” Wary of the silence above her, she quietly saunters over to the pair. “When you’re ready, Selim.” 

A huff and two eyerolls later they creep up the staircase, into the abyss, and past an uncrossable line.

* * *

A gunshot pierces the air, ceiling detritus raining down on their heads.

“Whoa! Where you going?” a bumptious, rather gravely female voice booms in accompany of the firearm.

Oddly enough, the powdery rubble has a somewhat frightening similarity in taste to Spanish angulas, Brooke cannot help but note as she raises her hands in surrender, and, following a sighing Selim's lead, rotates to face the dreaded Sunny Gilzean. They'd scrammed as soon as they'd realized they weren't alone, but, perhaps as a consequence of how relaxed they had been, or, worse, as a consequence of Brooke's presence, they hadn't been nearly quick enough to clear the building. 

The gang, intimidating, shadowy silhouettes against light streaming in through the still open entrance, approaches with an assured gait, a hefty brunette dressed in a cozy, unbuttoned blazer heading the center.

"Hey, Cat," she says, arms spread wide, painstakingly drawing out the vowel sounds in every word, a fake familiarity in her cadence. 

"Hey, Sunny," Selim tries, quite obviously exaggerating the jubilance in both appearance and tone. "You lose weight?"

Sunny chuckles rancorously-- Brooke immediately concludes that this is an attempt at intimidation, likely due to time spent practicing tactics of the same vein alone in the mirror on countless occasions, preparing to face the people who murdered Mason and Theresa Wayne-- throwing her head back in faux confidence.

"Keep cracking wise, Selim," threatens the young woman-- although Brooke is unsure of the veracity of the age assessment, as she is quite worn by her weight, her performative attitude, and her hygiene, or lack thereof, disguises her features, leaving her anywhere from twenty to thirty at most-- scowl apathetic and angry. "You ain't gonna be smiling when my aunt gets to you." She motions to the surrounding underlings in a manner that is most probably meant to indicate gathering the two perpetrators and bringing them somewhere, and Brooke observes complacently with the aspiration of integrating the know-how of such gesticulations.

As they commence their walk of shame, she glances devoutly in the direction of their captor, recording behaviors and features for potential future encounters. Brooke has gone largely unnoticed as of now, making certain to utilize this to her advantage; Who is Sunny, really? Why is she so malicious? So arrogant? What are her aspirations in this? Was she conditioned by her family-- _Burch Gilzean, most imperatively, was it a business?_ \-- to this point? Is she innately aggressive?

Sunny sneers distastefully, breaking Brooke out of her intensive pondering, punching her fist to her palm like she wishes it was their faces.

“Let's see how many lives you really have left."

* * *

When Gilzean slams Selim against the table, rubbing his face in dubiously lethal drugs, grinning, appearing to take joy, some hostile, sadistic kind of _pleasure_ in the pain etched across his features, in contorting the short, underfed boy to her whims, to standing above him in an indomitable, unbeatable posture, Selim looking so, so powerless, so unlike himself, so vulnerable in a way Brooke has never seen before, she finds she has an indefatigable answer to her questions.

“Stop,” she demands, lurching in her hold, desperate to save her ( _only)_ friend. “Aren’t you being rather cowardly,” her voice challenges, goads, jeers, “assaulting someone so much smaller than you?”

Gilzean steps away from Selim--thank god-- and that’s all that really matters. “No, she’s right.” _Stiff upper lip, always the stoic, poker face_ ; Brooke remains still and composed, disregarding the sudden, almost overwhelming force of this undivided, negative animus pointing in her direction. “When you’re right, you’re right, you know?”

Gilzean approaches, the smile from earlier inching wider. “Say,” she starts, raising her arm, and that’s the only warning before, “We’re around the same height, aren’t we?” And the impact-- white, hot, _burning_ \-- is enough to send Brooke crumbling to the floor.

“Knock it off, Sunny,” Selim interjects. “You made your point.”

But she can’t let him get hurt again. “Stay out of this, Selim.” Did she just… growl that?

Gilzean doesn’t seem to care about Selim anymore anyways. Brooke is _beyond_ relieved.

“Call me a coward again,” the junior mobster dares, as though a punch to the stomach was enough to found the kind of fear necessary to whip Brooke into reveling prostration.

Even from the floor, she’s got more dignity, more fortitude than the worm who towers above her. “You’re a coward,” she snarls, not wavering in the slightest, eyes locked onto Gilzean’s with angry purpose. Chest heaving, copper on her tongue, she ascends, standing tall in the face of this-- _just a person_ \-- cruel oppressor. “An ignorant, brutish--”

Once again she's knocked to the floor, warmth trickling down her nostrils, possibly broken. “While you’re down there, kid,” and Gilzean sounds so _disgustingly_ sure of herself, “lick my boot.” She spits on the huddled form of the billionaire-- no, it’s _only Brooke_ now-- waiting, watching for her to snap, to apologize, to be afraid. ‘ _Strength costs wind,_ ’ Winifred had said, disadvantaged, bruised, on the cusp of hospitalization at the hand of a much beefier opponent, _‘now, if you’re gonna beat a big man, all you have to do is outlast him.’_ These words resound with her as she defies the throbbing of her joints, her nose, her stomach, as she rises, this is how she’s supposed to feel, to be, something about it, sparking a tempest churning in her gut, like she was made to--

And then they’re at it, but she’s fighting back this time, trading punches, ducking, stinging, giving, receiving, winded and stinging, heart pounding and pounding and pounding so fast it's flying out her fist, Gilzean laughing-- “I think she actually _wants_ a beating,” -- lifting her effortlessly by her collar, pressing her against the wall-- “Is that your thing, kid? You like pain?” -- and Brooke retorts through the searing, indescribable fire-- “An ignorant, brutish, _cowardly_ clown.”

Gilzean is dumbfounded, then ecstatic. “Yep, she likes it alright.” She leans in so close, Brooke can count nose hairs. “Your parents must’ve been real freaks, bringing up a weird kid like you.”

Apparently, Selim has reached a threshold for standing by. “Enough,” he screams, elbowing the woman restraining him in the ribs, jumping into the fray with irritable fury.

Selim by her side, two against four, they just barely pull through, cash stuffed in her crafty friend’s jacket, Brooke practically having to be tugged away-- she’d misplaced common sense in that moment for something far more dangerous, she would realize later, upon guilty reflection-- but they do; running off into the everlasting rain, they escape, and Brooke feels…

She feels so very…

wrongly…

rightly...

_Alive._

* * *

That year, while Brooke is standing watch to Selim’s pillaging-- he needs the food, she reasons, and technically, it is… legal, today, even if she despises it, not that she could stop him—she nearly jumps out of her skin when a panting, wild, lanky old woman comes barreling past her, limping heavily, clutching desperately at her side. She doesn’t make it far before tripping flat on her face, and, quelling a small semblance of better judgement, Brooke kneels besides her.

“Are you,” how does she breach this, she looks harmless, but since when has that ever really meant they were, but she’s already said something, and the lady looks so afraid, “Are you alright, ma’am?” _Obviously not._

She flinches, eyes frantically searching for something that isn’t there. Someone screams in the distance.

“ _Clowns_ ,” she manages. “Don’t let them find me.” She latches onto the sleeve of Brooke’s obligatory turtleneck like a rope to salvation. “Please, they’re coming, they’re, please, they’re monsters, they’re monsters, you have to, to help.” She coughs, blood trickling from the corners of her mouth, tears sliding down her battered face, hyperventilating, cowering, wrinkled and shivering and _defenseless_. It’s not fair, and it’s not right, and _nobody is going to help._

_“Please--”_

Well. There’s no way in hell Brooke isn’t going to do something now.

She attempts an amicable, non-threatening smile. “I will, I promise.” So many facets, so many queries and scenarios-- is this the doing of some kind of Purge group? She’d read about those. Or is the meaning more literal? Terrorists donning face paint and baggy clothes? Are they on their way here? -- and possibilities. “My name’s Brooke. You can follow me and my friend, I know a place that’s safe. Can you walk?”

Convincing Selim, sandwiches poking out of his pockets, milk jugs strapped to his back, takes considerable time, as justly apprehensive as he is—“When she shanks you, don’t come cryin’ to me.”-- and the elderly female requires assistance from the both of them, but in the end they’re back to Selim’s hideaway before any serious maiming takes place.

Predictably, the catlike boy is back to the streets as soon as Brooke retrieves the jury rigged first aid kit-- it won’t be pretty, but it’s the best they’ve got right now. Brooke’s researched such procedure to a thorough extent, been in need of intensive care of her own an unholy number of occasions, surely she can assist in some, better than nothing way _. Pressure on the wound._ Unless she does more harm than good and—but, but there’s no other choice. _No other choice_ , she repeats, keeping in mind to better her medical proficiency as soon as humanly possible. Another firsthand city slumming experience for the win! Damn it, all the uselessness of a silver spoon when it really counts, like she could use hundred-dollar bills as bandages-- and Brooke has to bridle herself from bombarding the… unfortunate lady with a torrent of inquiries before she’s patched up.

What she finds under the ratty coat, however, has her gasping for sense, leaving her with one glaring thought much more prominent than the many, intrusive others. “What did they do to you?” she whispers, tentatively dabbing disinfectant on the slashes, scouting out what does and what does not require stitches. Along the dark, delicate, sagging and freckled skin of the woman—she could be a grandmother-- in front of her, a litany of laughter, the letters ‘h’ and ‘a,’ _ad nauseum_ , is carved, bright and scabbing coppery maroon, careful and awful and precise; like some wretched cattle brand, she thinks.

“ _Who_ did this to you?”

**Author's Note:**

> *raises sword* FOR LESBIANS


End file.
